The Importance of Matchmaking in League of Legends 1 Jon Decelle - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Importance of Matchmaking in League of Legends

Jon Decelle Gabriel Hall Lindsay O’Donnell

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Introduction and Problem Statement

Section 1

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Online Games

• In online games, players connect to one another over a network and play with

each other.

• Some games are 1v1, while others are team based.
• In many of these games, players’ skill levels can vary widely.
• For enjoyment, players want to play with other players of similar skill.

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Matchmaking

• Matchmaking places players of similar skill together in a

match.

• Better matchmaking algorithms form more even matches.
• Matchmaking needs to be fast

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Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA)

• Competitive, team based
• Win the game through

killing enemy structures

• MOBAs are session based,

so players develop skill and increase their ranking by winning games

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League of Legends (LoL)

• Most popular current day MOBA [Forbes 2012]
• Free to Play
• Developed by Riot Games in 2009
• WPI has many LoL players to study

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Ranking and Matchmaking in LoL

• Each player has a visible rank and a hidden matchmaking rating

(MMR)

• This rating is based on the Elo formula, originally designed for

chess

• LoL ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master,

and Challenger.

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Research Questions

• How balanced is matchmaking in LoL?
• How long do players wait for a match?
• How do players perceive how well matchmaking works?
• What factors affect player enjoyment?

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Study Methodology

Section 2

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Study Methodology Overview

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• Collect player ranks to determine how evenly matched

teams were by rank

• Collect player perceptions of how even game turned out
• Collect game data to show how even game was statistically
• Compare these to see how much of an impact matchmaking

has on game

Study Advertising

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• Solicited subjects by emailing IMGD majors, Gaming club,

and asking friends

• Offered open time slots for subjects to come in
• Held studies on the weekend when more people are

generally free

Study Regulations

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• Players signed consent forms
• Players set up their game settings
• Asked to play 5v5 games, solo queue only as this affects the

matchmaking

• Play Ranked if possible

○ Uses their Ranked MMR which is represented by their

visible rank

Surveys

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• Collected demographic player information pre-game
• Collected player perceptions post-game
• Done before and after each game

○ Game was fresh in player’s mind

Environment

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• Computer lab where all the players could see, hear,

and talk to one another during games.

• Many subjects came in groups

○ Although they were playing separately, often

interacted

Matchmaking Data Collection

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• Collected ranks of each player in each game through

third party website while game in progress

• lolnexus.com

Player Survey

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• After each game:

○ Game enjoyability ○ Game evenness overall and at different times during game ○ Reasons for win or loss ○ Outlier players

Game Data

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• Collected game data from Riot’s match history website:

○ Gold difference at 20 minutes and at the end of game ○ Kills for each team ○ Game time ○ KDA for each player ○ Position played

Even vs Uneven

• There are many measures to show how even or uneven a

game was:

○ Kill difference ○ Gold difference (Gold is obtained by killing enemies and

enemy structures)

○ Game Time (If one team is far ahead, they are likely to finish

the game quickly)

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Analysis and Results

Section 3

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Study Results and Demographics

• 23 unique participants
• 3 studies, 5 hours each
• 65 games, 52 complete and valid surveys

○ Website for data collection went down during one study

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How does queue time correlate with rank?

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Does better teamwork lead to higher player enjoyment?

• Axes:

○ x: “How well did your team work together?” ○ y: “How enjoyable was was the game you just played?”

• The line of fit shows the

positive correlation between these responses.

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Are even games more fun?

• Axes:

○ x: “How even was the game you just played?” ○ y: “How enjoyable was was the game you just played?”

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